762 



Canadian Forestry Journal, October, ipi6 



seven square miles, and was divided 

 into six "series," each series being- fur- 

 ther subdivided into thirty "coupes," 

 the trees in each coupe being of about 

 the same age. 



A macadamized road traversed the 

 forest from end to end and from the 

 centre, where the chief forester's hut 

 was situated, well made and drained 

 earth roads ran in stellar fashion 

 through each series. 



No Lookout Tozvers Needed. 



The coupes were similarly marked 

 off by boundary stones and a cleared 

 path about six feet wide, often with a 

 bricked centre to give a secure foot- 

 hold to horse traffic. There were no 

 watch towers or fire guards, a fact that 

 I commented on, and was assured by 

 the old forester were unnecessary. 



Each scries was under the charge of 

 a separate forester who also acted as 

 gamekeeper in those series in which 

 game was permitted to live. Pheas- 

 ants were plentiful in every series; 

 rabbits, or rather hares, were only tol- 

 erated in the alternate ones, which 

 were carefully fenced with a rabbit- 

 proof netting and gates, a stiiT penalty 

 being awarded for leaving the gate 

 open. A small variety of deer was 

 also plentiful, but the writer did not 

 see any at close enough range to iden- 

 tify. They were not much larger than 

 a goat and about the same color as our 

 own deer. One only saw them as a 

 patch moving across the avenues of 

 the trees in the distance. 



Engineers at Work. 



Our work in the forest consisted of 

 felling small trees, mostly oaks and 

 ashes, up to nine inches across the 

 butt, for use in the trenches as dugout 

 props, etc. Smaller stakes were also 

 cut for use in wire entanglements and 

 in revetting the sandbag walls of the 

 trench. The majority of the actual 

 felling had been done before the writ- 

 er's arrival, and when he took over 

 command we were merely getting out 

 the logs from some of the inner coupes 

 where work had been stalled by the 

 mud and cleaning up the brushwood 

 and stumps from the other coupes. 



Logs were handled on sledges we 

 built for the purpose and skidded quite 

 nicely through the mud, unusuallv 



large ones being hauled singly, butt 

 first. 



Road Building. 



The brushwood was first thrown 

 into piles and then on the coupe being 

 cleared of logs it was bundled accord- 

 ing to its nature into "fascines," or 

 "firewood." The former were bun- 

 dles ten or twelve feet in length and as 

 many inches in diameter, made by lay- 

 ing the branches alternately "butt and 

 brush," and bound here and there af- 

 ter "choking" with withes or iron wire. 

 Thye were largely used in road build- 

 ing across swampy ground, and if you 

 ever wish to punish infantry just march 

 them a few miles across a road made 

 of this material. At Valcartier we ex- 

 perienced one road of this sort, through 

 which the horses sank to their flanks 

 when the fascines, which had not been 

 properly tied, started to spread. 



They are, of course, only used for 

 temporary roads, filling in shell holes, 

 etc., but in France were employed to 

 form a cushioning layer several feet 

 below the stones of the paved roads. 



Brushwood that was too short for 

 fascines was trimmed of its finer 

 branches and cut into four-foot 

 lengths, which were also bundled and 

 ultimately went to the trenches in the 

 form of charcoal. 



Even Spread the Ashes 



Anything left after the firewood was 

 cleared was burnt and the ashes then 

 had to be spread over a considerable 

 area so that the rain would carry the 

 potash contained in them back into the 

 soil. There is little waste in France. 



Even the chips made in felling the 

 trees were not wasted, being gathered 

 up in bags by old women and children 

 who scoured the coupes as soon as 

 they were vacated by the soldiers. 



The stumps, too, had to be cut level 

 with the ground, not the easiest method 

 of felling a tree, but saving in the 

 course of a few years many thousand 

 feet of timber. 



Branding the Trees. 

 There is another reason for cutting 

 the stump so close, and that is for the 

 purpose of replanting, the French 

 trusting to the sprouts the stump is 

 bound to send up the following spring 

 to fulfil this important work. Fed by 



